Milestone

Sometime today, this blog hit the 40,000 page view mark. While I definitely viewed it as a milestone when I first noticed the number on my blog stats today (I'm posting about it after all, amn't I?), I didn't think it was all that impressive at first. I've always viewed this blog as a pretty low traffic getter, especially compared to so many other sites and personal blogs out there. But then I looked at it another way. Since this blog has been around for just a little over 4 years (first post on Jan. 12th, 2011), that averages to 10,000 views a year. That's pretty amazing to me. While I do share my posts on the few social media sites I'm on (namely Facebook and LinkedIn), I'm not that aggressive in "marketing" myself or manipulating my posts for the sake of clickbait or "content strategy." Moreover, all my life I've been a very shy and introverted person, a member of a very large family (by American standards), not much of a joiner nor a leader in social situations, and not that confident or self-assured as readers who don't actually know me might assume given that I'm a woman who travels alone a lot.

In other words, I'm used to fading into the background or being overlooked, so much so that I just assume that's what I do. And as far as this blog is concerned, I've always been convinced that most of the people who come to it are probably people who were looking for something else and just landed on one of my posts by mistake. I don't track how long anyone stays on my blog (I'm neither that self-obsessed or stats-obsessed), but my assumption is that a lot of the views might not be very long-lasting or "deep." In the days when I was still trying to get my women-only tour company going and I was doing a lot of cross-linking between my tour website and this blog, I wondered how many hits on both the website and blog were from foreigners mistaking "wayfaring woman/women" to mean something like a mail-order bride. This is especially my hunch in the weeks when I notice a sudden spike in views from Russia or Ukraine or some place similarly unlikely. I imagine somebody in a big fuzzy hat all wrapped in bear-fur rugs sitting at a lap-top with a feeble wifi connection studying and scouring my blog intently, trying to translate my midwestern Americanese ramblings, and wondering where on this damn blog the women-for-sale are. I'm always doubting that I might actually have some fans or regular readers out there--other than the ones I'm related to and the ones I pay of course. (Joking.)

Anyway, what I'm trying to say is, an average of 10,000 views a year suggests maybe there is somebody out there who hears me, reads me, gets me, likes me. And if that's true, and if you're hearing/reading/getting/liking this, then thank you. Thanks for your time and attention. It means a great deal.

If you care to, you can take a look back at my very first post, just for kicks and giggles. You'll see the intention of this blog has evolved a little bit--less travel-focused, more writing-in-general-focused. We'll see if I'm still doggedly blogging in another 4 years, and how may of you are still around, and how I, my writing, and the world have evolved. My only hope is that if I keep up my current rigorous beauty regimen, I'll look as lovely as this fellow blogger/writer:

Maybe I'll even finally have upgraded to the Mac too! (Just kidding--I can barely even operate one.) Anyway, thank you again for tuning in, and thank you to anyone who's ever shared one of my posts or pieces of writing over the past 4 years. Look for some posts on Puerto Rico and writing stuff in the next few weeks.

The very first pic I ever posted on this blog. Me in Bolivia, 2010.